James Carl's work has always played on a clever tension between form and material, and a canny reversal of the throwaway and the everyday. An apparent scattering of rubber bands, say, are in fact singular, meticulously handmade works, while an assortment of objects appearing for all the world to be Styrofoam food containers are, in fact, perfectly-crafted marble sculptures aping those disposable forms with uncanny perfection.

It's a clever little reversal, taking mass-produced everyday objects, barely noticeable in their ubiquity, and co-opting their forms to create singular works with unerring precision (Carl's implied critique of consumer waste is empowered, at least partly, by his remarkable sculptural skills, honed at the Central Academy of Arts in Beijing).

It's a reversal, though, that Carl ably diverts in new directions to keep it fresh. At Diaz Contemporary, both of those factors converge in large sculptural pieces from his Jalousie series, which he weaves from Venetian blinds. These first showed up here in 2009, in vibrant colours, and were an instant hit; the National Gallery bought several and gave them pride of place in its 2011 acquisitions show It Is What It Is.

At Diaz, you can see why. Possessed of unnerving presence, these works, all new but muted this time mostly in pale blues and dusty pinks, are nonetheless light as air. Huge and biomorphic, they suggest nothing so powerfully as the high Modernism of Henry Moore, whose carved stone works plied a romantic ethos of purity, the material of the stone guiding the finished work as much as the artist himself.

Carl can relate. Weaving Venetians, an unwieldy material prone to its own maddening self-determination, presents its own challenges, and Carl has referred to them, winkingly, as a collaboration between him and the blinds themselves.

But apply to that Modernist synergy the decidedly impure process of mass-production and its wastes and the work takes on dimension not unlike the carved-marble food boxes of not so terribly long ago.

Factor in that the Jalousies' inner void suggests almost a wrapping, or protective shell, and jumping to another conclusion — that they're byproduct of an actual work long since unwrapped and claimed — and they beguile further.

Consumer junk transformed into the theoretically eternal — a work of art — is an old trick, but one, in capable hands, that never seems to age, and Carl's are among the most capable you'll find.

Meanwhile, at Erin Stump Projects, repurposement takes on a poetic, warm-fuzzy air in the work of Maggie Groat. This is Groat's first solo show here, but she's been around, most notably as part of the Power Plant's current omnibus Toronto show More Than Two, and at this weekend's Scotiabank Nuit Blanche.

Groat ostensibly works in collage, a medium that's gained almost wearying currency in the local scene in recent years, but quirky impulse and source material differentiates and adds depth to Groat's work here. In the middle of the space, a cobbled-together piece of furniture, plainly titled Fences Will Turn Into Tables, gives context to Groat's poetically-charged reinvention urge, and informs the dynamic, colourful pieces that line the walls.

Some, like The Monuments in the Mountains, are signature pieces for a still-young practice — Groat graduated from Guelph's MFA program in 2010 — displaying esoteric bits of photos clipped from magazines in such a way as to veil their actual selves in favour of colour and form. Others, like Freethinkers Discuss the Moon, are day dreamy delights, with a vintage photo mounted face down and dried pansies scattered inside the frame.

In what one might guess is a hint of future horizons, one piece stands apart from the others. It's called New Visions, a black-and-white photo of group of young people, from behind, cropped just-so to leave them perched on the edge of an abyss of pure white. Whether this means to suggest Groat is ready to say good-bye to all that and chart a course to parts unknown remains to be seen, but I'll be happy to follow where she leads.

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